Boerne

By Brent Evans

In 1849, German Freethinkers had been dreaming of a communal utopia, free from oppression by church and state. They settled in Texas on the Cibolo Creek, where Native Americans and Spanish explorers had gone before them. The experiment evolved into a frontier outpost, a stage stop, a health spa, a railhead, a small village, a brief chapter in the Civil War, and a farm and ranch community. Boerne is now a tourist destination and a lovely place to live. This collection of pictures and stories explores what has been amazing, unique, and a little odd about this bend in the Cibolo, as well as the history of local conservation efforts. As the little town of Boerne goes through its inevitable growing pains, it is important to remember its special people and places, and what is worth saving.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Nov 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9781439624753

Brent Evans

Author Brent Evans has been a social worker for 40 years and has helped develop the Cibolo Nature Center, the Cibolo Conservancy Land Trust, the Kendall County Partnership for Parks, and the Living History Festival. He coauthored The Nature Center Book. The vintage photographs in this collection came from the Boerne Public Library and from private donors.

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1997).

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Boerne, a little town with plenty of character, or more to the point, characters. Boerne was born out of a collision of cultures in the wild hills of Texas, where a few folks were stubborn enough to settle down and make the best of it. Many Native Americans, Mexicans, and Spaniards were here before the photographic record begins. As Mark Twain notes in his essay The Lowest Animal, Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country—takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him. . . . There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner. Texas was no exception.

Long ago, there was a primitive interstate network of trade routes through the Texas hills, including the Camino Viejo - or Old Road. Early explorers and settlers named a little stream that flowed from the hills on to the San Antonio River and eventually the Gulf of Mexico the Cibolo, meaning buffalo. But it turns out that the word was probably a joke. Historian Jefferson Morgenthaler traces the origins of the word cibolo to the failed 1540 expedition by Coronado to find the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola, a legendary gold-laden, jewel-encrusted empire. Coronado found no gold with the Zunis in New Mexico or anywhere else. Spanish troops began sarcastically calling the thousands of buffalo that they found on their journey—previously known as vacas, or cows—cibolas. Cibola is now Spanish for a buffalo cow; cibolo is the bull. A 1718 Spanish map depicts the Arroyo Sibulo in this area. In 1836, José Enrique de la Peña reported, I advanced to Cibolo Creek, and I saw hundreds of buffalo in herd.

To encourage settlement, Mexican authorities allowed organized immigration, and by 1834, they estimated that the Texas territory had over 30,000 Anglos, 7,800 Mexicans, and almost 7,000 slaves. During the Texas Revolution in 1835, Capt. Ben Milam confronted 100 Mexican cavalry near Cibolo Creek and forced them to retreat back to San Antonio—this little skirmish . . . was regarded as a favorable omen, wrote Milam. But, in 1836, the siege of the Alamo ended with 180 defenders killed. In the same year, the decisive battle at San Jacinto resulted in Santa Anna’s defeat, paving the way for Texas Independence. Many Mexican settlers in Texas had opposed Santa Anna’s brutality and joined with the Texans, proudly proclaiming, We are Tejanos!

Land speculation in the Cibolo Valley grew, and Germans became interested. The 1847 Bettina colony on the Llano River succeeded in bringing in a first harvest, but it was not enough. Hardships were underestimated, provisions were inadequate, and the colony disintegrated. Five settlers temporarily landed in Sisterdale and then moved farther south, joined three more Germans, and founded Tusculum in 1849 where the ancient Camino Viejo met up with the Rio Cibolo. This was the beginning of Boerne. Meanwhile, another Bettina settler, Dr. Ferdinand Herff, was back in Frankfurt, Germany, publishing The Regulated Emigration of the German Proletariat, Being Also a Guide for German Emigrants. This was a long list of lessons learned from Bettina: instructions and warnings, including the necessary tools and supplies, and detailed estimates of manpower needs and financial requirements. A twenty family colony would need to build twenty block-houses, break 200 acres of land and plant and cultivate corn for their own use; fence in those acres, plant and cultivate 50 acres of corn to furnish provisions for the second shipment of colonists, and build a good cattle corral of at least one-half acre in size. The houses would require one thousand logs, fifty per house, 400 rafters and 800 boards, and thatch and wattle for roofing. To enclose the 200 acres of field would require 12,600 fence rails, and 3,800 stakes and riders. He called for the colonization of Texas.

By the 1850s, Main Plaza was the place for trading goods and watering livestock. Pioneers built houses using native limestone rocks and cypress timbers. In 1856, Texas Rangers were stationed in Boerne because of Native American raids. In the 1860s, many Germans felt no allegiance to the Confederacy. Unlike most Texans, Boerne’s precinct voted 85 to 6 against secession. A local Confederate-leaning rancher wrote this account in 1862: Back from Boerne with the news. There has been a considerable battle near Richmond in which the Confederates whipped the Yankees. Stonewall Jackson has got in the rear of McClellan’s army and he is in a bad fix. . . . There are believed to be a considerable body of men up in Fredericksburg, at least 300 who may give trouble. . . . I may be enrolled among the conscripts and will not be able to get a physician’s certificate of inability, as I understand they will not take Dr. Herff’s in San Antonio. Confederate troops entered Kendall County in 1862 to punish those who would avoid conscription. Under the Take No Prisoners policy of Confederate captain James Duff, a number of rebellious locals were killed. The Herff farm was commandeered into a prisoner-of-war camp, the cypress trees along the Cibolo were cut down, livestock was confiscated, and the house was burned to the ground.

In 1863, the Confederate rancher wrote this letter: You have no idea what a chance we missed. We could have easily converted our negroes into cotton and realized from them $100,000. But, that time is past. By 1870, he wrote: Indians are in the country all the time. During, the past week, dark of the moon, they have stolen horses all around us. I am afraid to turn the horses out to graze. No one will venture to purchase property on the frontier. Town lots in Boerne have increased in value, but no one will look at land outside Boerne. His last letter was in 1874: Having no servant we are all over worked. I am always so tired from working in the garden I am scarcely able to sit when in the house (from Woolford’s Tales, San Antonio Light, March 29, 1959).

The 1870s were marked by cattle drives by new English settlers, the first school in Boerne, and the construction of the Kendall County Courthouse. In 1875, the